It’s not that the entire mainstream media is in on it, only the billionaires that own it. The editors and journalists go against their best interests because they have no one else who will pay them. The liberal press isn’t profitable, so the billionaires are trying to make them accomplices in their own destruction.

He was less invested in those causes at that point than he was in progressive labor policies. As far as evolution and prohibition go, he had some understandable motivations. Alcohol causes terrible harm and he also worked to improve the conditions that drive people to addiction. Evolution was promoted by social darwinists to justify capitalist exploitation. He was less of a YEC by today’s standards, even if he was wrong.

He didn’t know how much prohibition would fail beforehand, and his opposition to evolution touches on an important assumption people make about nature. Most people assume that something being natural makes it good, but evolution shows how misguided that assumption is.

Evolution is a process fuelled by death, where no individual matters and we are only servants to a soulless machine. We only grow old and die to help evolution work faster. Most suffering serves our genes rather than us as people. Capitalism sucks because of the ways it resembles evolution, turning every element of our existence into a mechanical processes. Evolution dangles happiness in front of us to get us to serve it.

WJB just couldn’t accept that nature is so cruel, that we’re machines produced by a process that only advances through death. Most religious people still need to square this reality with their understanding of a creator deity worthy of worship. I respect the concept of God more as our creation of than as our creator. If it were to represent our common personhood instead of our evolved species, it would actually be worth serving.

Rotate the compass 45° clockwise, name the new vertical axis to state economy vs private economy, and name the new horizontal axis to left and right. At the far left(green) you have total destruction of hierarchy and flattening of power inequality, while at the far right(blue) you have absolute hierarchy and centralized power.

State centralized economies(red) lead to increased hierarchy by empowering government officials to become powerful lords. Privatized economies(purple/yellow) lead to increased hierarchy by empowering capitalists to become powerful lords. Trying to reach either the top or bottom tip of the diamond leads you the right tip.

Horseshoe theory kind of applies to Marxist-Leninists like its pro-capitalists creators imagined, but they didn’t realize that they were the other end of the horseshoe. This is because both capitalism and the state are the dangers. The problem with both stems from allowing the unrestricted accumulation of power.

Government officials use political capital, while capitalists use economic capital. They can feed off of each other, with the rich helping politicians and the politicians helping the rich. My preferred solution to both is to redistribute capital from the rich directly to the poor, growing the middle class by putting a ceiling and floor on the rich and the poor.

It doesn’t matter what you want the solution to be based on your values. If your solution jeopardizes your values more than the alternative solution would have, all you’ve done is make yourself feel better at the expense of others.

If you let people accumulate power unopposed, they will use less of it on improving the common good than if it was in the hands of more people. Poorer people give a greater proportion of their wealth to charity. A lower portion of the excess wealth controlled by billionaires goes to improving people’s lives than if that excess wealth went to those who had barely enough, or not enough. Wealth has diminishing returns on happiness. A million dollars to a billionaire won’t be noticed, while a million dollars to 99% of people would be life changing.

Taking from the wealthy and giving to everyone is tyranny of the majority on a tiny minority. The wealthy would still be on top and live comfortably, but they would now live in the same economic reality as everyone else. They could no longer burn money for fun while their fortune passively accumulates to see a net gain in wealth. Losing a million dollars would actually be felt, and they would need to adjust their lives in reaction to the loss.

On the other hand, if you rely on voluntary charity in the spirit of freedom, you see tyranny of a minority on the majority. They give far less of their money to the common good, instead spending more of their wealth on protecting their riches. This is what we see in reality. They lobby the government to serve their interests at the expense of the public, or in non capitalist systems, hire guards to protect their interests directly.

Feudal lords pay their workers wages that are lower than the value their work generates because they control the farmland. They control the farmland by protecting it with guards they pay, think knights and samurai. If the workers complain or try to sell food made on the land without giving the lords their cut, the guards suppress them using violence. The lord’s ownership of the land is only valid if they are protected, with violence, by their personal guards, payed for by the workers.

Does that sound like freedom? Do those workers sound free? By allowing people the freedom to gain power over a resource, the land and crops on that land, the workers have lost their freedom to see the fruits of their labor, sometimes literally. The fruits they pick are given to the lord, who trades the fruit for resources, but only give the workers enough resources to survive.

Freedom without limit destroys freedom for most people. Freedom must have a ceiling and a floor, or the freedom of others can be taken by that of another. I value everyone having freedom, which requires a cap on the freedom people can have. No one can be free to horde too much power.

Governments, companies, organizations and identities seem to function as meta organisms on large scales, interested more in their own survival above all else. It’s an emergent phenomenon of many individuals, but so are all multicellular organisms. Even individual genes can work against the interests of the cells they exist in, moving themselves around in the code to avoid deletion. Companies are machines made of living organisms and shaped by evolutionary pressures. Their practices spread into new companies if they help the company continue its existence. That’s what life is, machines that secure the future existence of their mechanical processes.

People do see ads of products and associate that product with its corresponding content. That’s how ads are understood to work. It doesn’t matter what the person consciously thinks, advertising works mostly through unconscious associations. The ADL, an organization funded by genocidal nationalistic Israelis to garner goodwill from anti-hate activists, isn’t applying alien logic to advertisers. They’re applying the very logic advertisers use to design their ads in the first place.

Utilitarianism is an explicitly hedonistic ethical framework, but all other moral frameworks tie back into hedonism in some way. Kant’s categorical imperative, the Socratic inspired virtue theories used by Christian theologians for millenia, social contract theory, even the widespread golden rule. They all tie back into serving one’s own self interest if you follow their logic. It’s so implicit that it’s unavoidable. They all originate in what we think will bring us utility/pleasure/happiness/eudaimonia.

The craziest part is, we don’t even serve our own pleasure. Having kids usually makes people less happy, but we want to do it regardless. Our pleasure evolved to serve our genes, just like everything about us.

You asked about my answers to longstanding questions. I found the form of the good that Plato imagined: the evolutionary imperative. I also discovered that forms come from our neurology and aren’t inherent, so it’s more accurate to say that I found the likely answer to a high degree of certainty.

That’s ok though, I also realized that we cannot ever have certainty about anything based in reality, with all deductive reasoning being based on induction. I don’t need proof, only evidence. It only needs to be the best answer, and I can always end up being wrong. Proof doesn’t matter if one’s assumptions are wrong. Solipsism is unavoidable. Not even “I think, therefore I am” is accurate, as it assumes thinking requires an agent who thinks.

The Trump voters only voted for what they thought were their interests, it’s just that their understanding was inaccurate. It’s ok though, because even the rich and powerful people that support Trump were voting against their long-term interests.

The rich destabilize societies to gain more power by getting free market ideologues elected, pushing the workers to suffer, which leads them to radical ideolgies. The rich then prefer to avoid socialism, so they support radical right wing ideologies in the form of fascists like Trump. Unfortunately, fascists create more worker suffering, harm the economy, and create international conflict with other nations. The global rise in fascism and collapse of neoliberal policies has pushed the entire planet towards World War.

This sounds crazy, but look at what Trump did in the middle east to inflame the current conflict. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and killed their general in an unprovoked attack. This has made Iran pursue nukes and take a more hostile stance against US interests, as their economy suffered from sanctions and they got pushed further to the right. His reckless support of Israel led Israel to be more bold in their actions against Palestinians and confident of US support. Israel has nukes, and if the war with Iran continues to escalate, they might be used by a desperate Israel.

His support of Putin and weakening of alliances with Europe probably encouraged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If Ukraine gets pushed too far west, Poland will likely put boots on the ground to prevent them from being easily invaded by Russia. Trump killing the Israel/Ukraine/border security funding bill makes it harder for Ukraine to remain strong against Russia, increasing the likelihood of EU direct intervention, and increasing the risk of nuclear war in Europe.

Trump’s useless trade war with China empowered hardliners in their government to be more hostile and nationalistic, increasing the probability of them invading Taiwan. If Taiwan gets invaded, the US might interfere militarily and risk escalating to a broader conflict, although nukes are less likely than the other conflicts.

Regardless of what values the rich may have, all this danger is not good from any perspective. Nobody wins in wars they need to fight in. The military industrial complex is fucked if the US gets nuked. The entire global economy has already been harmed by these conflicts, and even if no nuclear bombs are ever used, conventional bombs are already bad enough. Modern nations can’t be conquered by direct warfare, only destroyed.

Fascists are bad for everyone in the long run, and that’s what the GOP is. They aren’t regular conservatives like in the past, they’re against liberal democracy entirely. Bush wanted to use some elements of liberal democracy to enact conservative goals, but Trump broke from it completely. The entire Republican party has been purged of anyone who might stand against fascism, from Romney who will be gone by the end of the year, to Liz Cheney who got the boot in 2022. Even fascists like McCarthy can’t survive if they don’t follow every order Trump gives.

You’re right about me not knowing what you think you advocate for, but saying pro cop people have a point isn’t advocating for reform. I think cops need to exist to some extent, but I’m willing to defund them, prosecute them, and replace the entire system to reign them in. Pro cop people aren’t giving enough criticism to make any positive change, sorry.

I also should have said conservative instead of right wing. Conservative plans will never help the weak. Values and intentions don’t matter when the solution doesn’t work. Progressive plans may not work every time, but they are the only ones capable of working.

No, you’re conservative. I don’t like labeling my beliefs either, but being pro cop and antiprogressive is conservative. In reality, self proclaimed American conservatives want to change society to be more hierarchical and unfair, not keep things as is. If you’re not applying pressure for reformation, selfish interests will cause backsliding. The battle will never end until humanity dies out. Good things require effort to maintain.

Another mistake you make is thinking progressives have more power than we do. The rich aren’t progressive. Companies pandering to diverse customers aren’t progressive, they’re just making money by expanding their customer base. The right screams about companies being woke, but the companies are often act more right wing than they would be if they were only chasing profits.

Social media companies don’t censor conservatives unfairly, instead they protect conservatives from the policies they implement to prevent brands from pulling advertising. The standards are higher for left wing causes in the mainstream media, as the rich people who own them are right wing. Accurate descriptions of reality in science and journalism tend to support progressives more than conservatives, with publications often introducing inaccuracies to prop up conservative positions.

My biggest problem when I thought like you was having an inaccurate view of left wingers as having power in society. Many agents that I thought were left wing actually weren’t, instead only supporting left wing causes for personal gain. Empirical observations are almost always in opposition to right wing plans for improving society. Exclusively right wing plans never make things better for the weak; never.

If you want fundamental truths and answers to our biggest questions, read my comment history. This comment is already long enough.

I went through a phase where I felt the exact same way. My upbringing was left wing and becoming more conservative felt like rebellion. I was never really that right wing, but I was convinced that conservatives must have some valid points. After all, how could half the country be wrong on almost everything?

Unfortunately for conservatives, I never stopped questioning, never stopped pushing ideas to their limits. In doing so, I independently came to many of the same left wing viewpoints I grew up with, only stronger and more resilient. I realized that my parents were actually right, while I was wrong.

More importantly, I realized that conservative ideas did make sense, but not at face value. Conservatives are inconsistent and contradictory because they aren’t expressing their motivations explicitly. They often aren’t aware of their actual reasoning, but there is logic behind their views. The logic is usually very cynical and cruel, dehumanizing people and valuing identity over principles.

I used to think somewhat like you, until I applied a critical lens to conservative ideas in the same way I had investigated familiar progressive ideas. Now I’m a trans woman who’s farther left than every elected representative in congress. I still believe in almost all of the leftist ideas I was raised with, only I’ve pushed them farther than my parents ever did.

Right now you’re critical of progressives, and often you spot valid flaws, but are you willing to continue? Are you willing to peer deeper into reality; to open your eyes to fundamental truths? That was my strategy, and it took me from naive progressive, to rebellious centrist, to the eventual woke queen I am today.

I continue to awaken to new truths, mostly because I like doing it. I like the feeling of discovery and understanding. Thanks to my efforts, I’ve found likely answers to humanity’s biggest questions, raised my base happiness levels from constantly suicidal to never hopeless, and became way smarter than I thought I’d ever be. I think most people can learn what I’ve learned if they apply themselves, but it’s still a tough journey. Are you willing to take it?

Yeah. To a lot of young, vulnerable people who are less minoritized, progressives feel like the authority. You’re told you’re privileged, but you don’t feel it. This is partially because we take our personal experiences for granted, but also because even the relatively privileged struggle. Some people suffer more from the system than others, but a ton of things suck for everyone.

Unfortunately, the promises of the right are a monkey’s paw at best, or a scam at worst. Even if the right succeeds, they usually make things worse for everyone in the process, even themselves.

Honestly, I blame cops. Cops proudly look like thumbs over here, so right wingers have mostly captured the bald aesthetic. Bald and aggressive white men are assumed to be fascists because that’s what off duty cops look like. It’s worse to look like a cop than a civilian Nazi skinhead.

Even bands that aren’t big on politics know to beat up Nazis at their shows. It’s just common sense.

Hating the hateful doesn’t count. Waters may be an asshole, but his politics are fairly based. Even his bad takes come from leftist viewpoints.

It’s even worse with Ukraine. If Ukraine gets conquered, WWIII likely starts. Poland and others will probably put boots on the ground to prevent Ukraine from losing, triggering attacks from Russia, triggering NATO involvement, and pushing us to potential omnicide instead of genocide.

Israel is pushing towards nuclear war as well, only with Israel as the only nuclear player. Things are bad on a serious level right now that people haven’t comprehended

If he wasn’t worried, Biden would be much worse than he’s been(aka, the average for POTUS). He’s the best we’ve had since Carter, which is a condemnation of the office rather than praise of Biden.

If we got the President lemmy wants, a civil war would be the best scenario, but a coup would be more likely. The better the president, the harder their job. The more left wing candidate is always held to a higher standard.

They haven’t weaponized shit. He’s still being handled with kid gloves. TPTB are still protecting him for the most part. The reason he wasn’t investigated in the past is because TPTB are mostly rich assholes like him that protect each other from being treated like us peasants.

Most of the opposition still isn’t willing to hold Trump to the same standards as most people because even they’re rich, corrupt, conservative shitheads. The prosecutions are politically motivated to be weaker than they should be for his crimes because all prosecutions against elites are weak. Most of them would spend life in prison if justice was blind.

It still provides good protection, as breaking links isn’t easy. Most materials protect against slices; even a single layer of cloth helps. Slices suck against armor in comparison to other attacks. Weapons that slice also often hack well(heavier along the width and curved) or pierce well(narrower towards the pointy tip and straight).

I am very much in favor of using violence to take resources from people that don’t give back to the community they rely on. It’s a good thing to take money from the rich and greedy using violence. There is no imaginable society where people should be permitted to not contribute when they are capable of contributing.

If people are permitted to not contribute excess power, it places more of the burden on everyone else to make up for it. On top of that, as the tax dodger accumulates too much control over resources(wealth), they can use those resources to hire people that then impose violence on the community when they try to take the resources back.

If anything, an anarchist society should be more vigilant of resource accumulation, forcing each other to contribute through violence and ensuring that large power imbalances don’t emerge. There would be no state to handle redistribution, so it’d be the responsibility of every individual to make sure everyone has enough. There’d be no justification for anyone to have too much exclusive control over important resources, nor would there be a justification to not give excess resources to ensure everyone has the essentials.

In a society that prohibits excessive wealth imbalance or centralization of control, there’d be power inequality, but there’d also be a well established ceiling and floor to the inequality. That will always require some form of progressive “taxation” or system of redistribution. There’d also need to be taxation on almost all worker productivity to help develop public goods that everyone will benefit from. Everyone would need to chip in what they can if they need a new communal well, or if they need to maintain the roads, or need to put someone’s home out if it caught fire. People would need to contribute even if they don’t benefit from the particular public service, as they might benefit from another one more than others.

A well functioning society must require people to contribute what they can to maintain & improve the community, must take from those that don’t contribute by force, must tax people even if they don’t consent. This isn’t optional for any system, state or no state. If it fails, exploitation, abuse, and suffering will destabilize the system until it falls apart from under its own weight. A society that taxes properly can minimize violence, maximize efficiency, and be far safer for everyone without exception. Even those on top are constantly in danger of being deposed by someone who wants their position, as well as the people they exploit.

Tldr: Yes, we must use violence to force contribution. Not doing so only causes more violence. Violence is unavoidable, and can only be minimized by ensuring no one gets too powerful to oppress.

Oh, got it. I can only use the term genocide after the genocide is fully completed. I guess it helps you virtue signal by saying “never again” without actually having to put in work when “again” comes around.

Last time I listened to the “boy who cried wolf” argument, I was proven wrong. We should have listened when Trump was called a fascist in 2016. It was unpopular to use that F word then, but what else can you call the Republicans now? It’s just what they are.

If you can’t use the word “wolf” until after it’s eaten all your sheep, you’re not a good Shepherd.

The current genocide being carried out by Israel against Palestinians and supported by almost all American politicians, including Biden? The genocide that we need to not shut up about because it’s a bad idea for literally everyone on top of being evil beyond measure? The imminent slaughter of a million children and adolescents? That genocide?

Nah, I’ve never said a word about that. I totally don’t tell anyone who might listen about how terrible it is. Nope, I’m exactly the liberal caricature you think I am. If I started from the same facts as you, I’d totally share your opinions because you’re an absolute genius about everything compared to me.

You’re right, I must wait until the day before the election to speak up. My bad!

They are in fact liberal, just at the other end of the spectrum to what right wingers mean.